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oh hey I'm glad you're here I've been
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waiting for you I'm so excited hey what
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do you think of the music business it's
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my brother Wes you know I'll turn it
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down in a minute
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but I can't can't wait to talk with you
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about the agricultural system assignment
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and our allocations I'll get to that
00:00:21
just a minute
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but I just want to convince you now that
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there's a few things that are more
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important than agriculture it is that
00:00:28
one of the biggest impacts we humans
00:00:30
have
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okay I'll turn it down let's review the
00:00:37
assignment the task before you was to
00:00:40
solve the world sustainable development
00:00:42
challenges associated with agriculture
00:00:44
you were given control over all the
00:00:46
resources for the next couple years and
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asked to divide them up amongst these
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challenges and so you've seen my
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allocations if I were the Czar and I'm
00:00:57
going to give you my explanations here
00:00:59
in a few minutes but first I want to go
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over what I think are some of the main
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issues I'm gonna do that by walking us
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through some system Maps they're pretty
00:01:09
complicated but absolutely fascinating
00:01:11
so you might want to pause and look at
00:01:13
them a little bit longer than I have to
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talk about them but first I want to
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convince you that agriculture is
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something we all do we're all directly
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connected we put stuff in our mouths
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three or four times a day we eat we're
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responsible we can affect a lot of
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change this graphic by the world
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Resource Institute
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I think paints the overall challenge we
00:01:34
have
00:01:35
we're basically hammer into biosphere
00:01:37
and I'll explain that a little bit more
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and we've got to increase it food
00:01:43
consumption from calories produced by 60
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maybe a hundred percent there are almost
00:01:48
a third of us twenty eight percent or so
00:01:50
are involved in agriculture so we're
00:01:53
going to be affecting a lot of people
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it's really only ten percent or so the
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total economy so the people aren't paid
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that well but there's a lot of people
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involved and the greenhouse gas
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emissions are are enormous so that may
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be a third or so depending on how the
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accounting goes here's another image
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we've seen before this is the planetary
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boundaries this one is a little
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different and it focuses just on the
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role of agriculture and you can see here
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we're blowing past a couple of the
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boundaries that create the safe
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operating space for human civilization
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biodiversity loss certainly that's
00:02:22
because we've cleared so much habitat to
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produce our our farm and agriculture
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production nitrogen cycle that's all the
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fixing of nitrogen for fertilizer
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climate change just because we've
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cleared so much forests as well as all
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the methane and other
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the gas is coming out of the soil and
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animals so we're having a huge impact on
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the biosphere by agriculture and we're
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gonna have to maybe double the
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productivity that's the challenge
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here's another system map this one shows
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where the money goes of every dollar
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spent on food and you can see a small
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fraction of it ten percent eleven point
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six percent goes to farm and
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agribusiness and actually maybe just a
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few cents on the dollar goes to the
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farmer food processing is another almost
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twenty percent and then the services the
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the production and shipping and
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packaging and providing of it that's
00:03:13
that's the bulk of it so the point here
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is that it's very difficult to
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incentivize farmers with with with
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economic incentives because there's very
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little money that goes from the consumer
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to the producer
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here's another way to look at the food
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system and this is sort of who owns it
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now there are literally millions of
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producers but only a handful of them
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have lots of power most of it's widely
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distributed but those that handful
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controls most of the food supply so you
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can see Cargill and Tyson's and others
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control a lot of the food system here's
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another way of looking at the power
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slash ownership structure this is the
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seed sources and you can see just a few
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companies owned most of the seed source
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Bayer and Monsanto up there on the left
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hand quarter have since merged but this
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is a tremendous amount of control over
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primary production seed sources an
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important implication is that just a few
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companies have a lot of control and if
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we target them if they change their
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behavior then the whole market flips and
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so there's a lot of tension and energy
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on these companies and efforts to work
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with them to become more sustainable
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here's the foreshadow a debate we're
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gonna have in a little bit and another
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way of thinking about the food system is
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who prepares our food or where we get it
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and this graph shows that the food
00:04:32
system has been changing dramatically
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over a couple decades is that most of us
00:04:35
now get our food away from home and of
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course that's prior to the pandemic a
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lot of people eat at restaurants or get
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their food prepared by somebody else
00:04:46
that comes in a pizza box or a can and
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we might bring
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but the point here is that a lot of our
00:04:52
food is prepared design the ingredients
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are decided by somebody else by a food
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service professional somebody that we
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can influence to change diets and
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ingredients this is significant because
00:05:04
we know that individual consumers are
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not very receptive to information and
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knowledge and facts about how to how
00:05:12
they ought to eat but food service
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professionals educated people with a lot
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of ego invested in doing the right thing
00:05:18
they are receptive to that kind of
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information it's hard to overemphasize
00:05:23
the importance of diet and dietary
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choices as illustrated here by how
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inefficient it is to eat meat just take
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so much more land produces so much more
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carbon require so much more water
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destroy so much more biodiversity
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because we're feeding the crops that we
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grow on the land we're feeding them and
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animals who in essence waste a lot of
00:05:45
that energy in terms of producing heat
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in terms of moving around in terms of
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belching out methane where we could have
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eaten it directly we use about half of
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our agricultural land is used and
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devoted to producing meat let's just
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look at corn this is a stinky diagram of
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the flow of corn where it goes in the
00:06:10
United States you can see most of it it
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comes from production comes from the
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farm some of it comes from inventory a
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little bit of that is exported or put
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back into seed source and inventory but
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most of it goes over there and in the
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right hand corner goes to animal feed go
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to cattle poultry and and and pigs right
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another big hunk of it goes to our gas
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tanks so if people are going hungry and
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part of the reason is because we're
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we're putting that food in our gas tanks
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just down there in the lower right
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that's that's all it is that we're
00:06:43
actually eating directly right and some
00:06:45
of it is alcohol moonshine other of it
00:06:48
is corn sugar and what-have-you but very
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little bit of it is the cereal or actual
00:06:53
food itself corn on the cob
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alright so most of it is used for other
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purposes here's another fascinating
00:07:01
system diagram
00:07:04
and it's pretty complicated so you might
00:07:05
want to pause and stare at it but let me
00:07:07
give you the highlights here before you
00:07:08
do the the blue bars represent how much
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greenhouse gases per kilogram of product
00:07:15
- the green is how much greenhouse gases
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per hundred calories of product and the
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red which I think is the most
00:07:20
significant point here is the greenhouse
00:07:22
gases per protein and I think that's
00:07:25
significant because most people argue
00:07:27
that they need protein from meat you can
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see here how lamb and beef and dairy
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generally are all pretty pretty horrible
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so if you want to minimize your
00:07:36
greenhouse gases for protein and you
00:07:38
have to you've have kind of animal
00:07:39
protein then chicken or eggs and
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certainly beans and lentils are best
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here's a cool example that should really
00:07:45
give you some heartburn if you're
00:07:47
worried about greenhouse gas emissions
00:07:48
and like surf-and-turf shrimp are a
00:07:52
really destructive of mangrove so
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there's a lot of biodiversity and
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greenhouse gas emissions that are
00:07:57
released and of course beef is also very
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destructive and if you think of all the
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force that's has to be cut down they're
00:08:03
huge hugely impactful so if you have a
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surf-and-turf just one meal of
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surf-and-turf e it releases the
00:08:09
equivalent greenhouse gases - driving a
00:08:12
fuel-efficient car from Washington DC to
00:08:14
Los Angeles Wow
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we also need to think about our dietary
00:08:19
choices impacts on water and here you
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can see there's a wide range of varying
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impacts up in the far right beef and
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then lamb would be worse than it uses
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huge amounts of water per serving but
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even beans and nuts down there in the
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bottom right they're not great so if
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you're in a water stressed area these
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crops may not be the best choice eggs
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over on the left and poultry aisle
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actually are better though again
00:08:45
dietary choices matter significantly
00:08:48
continuing the theme of agricultural
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impact on water let's look at runoff
00:08:54
from fertilizer this green stuff is
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algae that bloom because of excess
00:09:01
fertilizer runoff you remember from the
00:09:04
system assignment the previous system
00:09:06
assignment on water how much of the
00:09:09
fertilizer that gets applied actually
00:09:11
runs off that is it's not absorbed by
00:09:15
the plants it's
00:09:17
success and that produces deadzones
00:09:20
algae blooms that some become quite
00:09:23
toxic to all life-forms you also recall
00:09:28
that agriculture uses about 70% of the
00:09:31
freshwater supplies a lot of that is
00:09:32
pumped out of aquifers and it's not
00:09:35
being replaced and as a result there
00:09:37
around the world here in California
00:09:38
there's land subsidence that's 1977 when
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this photograph was taken by dr. Pollan
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and up at the top is 1925 that's how
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much the land has subsided and this is
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occurring around the world sometimes
00:09:50
dozens of meters a year and here is one
00:09:54
last image to drive home this
00:09:56
relationship between Ag and water and
00:09:58
here you can see the projected water
00:10:00
shortages just in the US and note that
00:10:04
they're basically under the the
00:10:06
breadbasket of the u.s. in Florida where
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a lot of vegetables are grown in the
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Midwest and in California so because of
00:10:15
climate change
00:10:16
and over pumping and aquifer depletion
00:10:18
and we're potentially in for a world of
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hurt so we're gonna have to increase the
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food supply but we're already hammering
00:10:27
the biosphere what are some solutions
00:10:28
well managing waste is one of them
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here's a graph I think you're familiar
00:10:33
with it's a world resource institute
00:10:35
I'll pause on this a bit and because
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it's pretty complicated I want to make
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sure you understand it it maps where the
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waste is coming from what's what's
00:10:43
pretty consistent is about 25 to 30
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percent of the food that we use is
00:10:49
wasted that so we can save it and that
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reduces the the need to increase
00:10:54
production and it varies very much by
00:10:56
country you can see in the developed
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world over there on the left is North
00:11:00
America most of the waste is consumption
00:11:03
is that we just don't eat it we throw it
00:11:05
away it rots in our refrigerator whereas
00:11:07
over on the right side in the developing
00:11:09
world a lot of the waste is caused by
00:11:11
poor infrastructure there's lack of
00:11:13
refrigeration or lack of transport the
00:11:15
crops rot in the field or they rot on
00:11:18
their way to market or they're not
00:11:20
packaged and stored in a way or with
00:11:22
preservatives that help them be
00:11:24
maintained freshness so we can we can
00:11:27
manage waste
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dramatically but it's going to differ by
00:11:33
region how will we do it well what else
00:11:36
can we do we can create alternative
00:11:39
kinds of food we can grow meat and
00:11:41
test-tubes I'm not a big fan of this
00:11:44
because of the enormous amounts of
00:11:47
energy and water it takes to do that
00:11:50
there are impossible burgers beyond beef
00:11:52
I think that's a much more viable
00:11:54
solution that's basically a vegetable
00:11:56
substitute for for meat not not growing
00:11:59
it in the lab or we could eat insects
00:12:02
insects grow really quickly very
00:12:04
efficiently it's a great way to get
00:12:06
protein although some of you probably
00:12:09
had it most of you are probably not yet
00:12:12
keen on shifting to this as your protein
00:12:15
source okay it's now time for me to
00:12:19
explain my evaluations and I've already
00:12:22
revealed my hand quite a bit in my
00:12:26
explanation of the system Maps earlier
00:12:27
but I want to begin with talking about
00:12:30
the two that I have labeled in blue
00:12:32
they're different than the other other
00:12:37
entries right have you figured that out
00:12:39
can you can you think why they're
00:12:41
different it's because they're both
00:12:44
about demand they're both about changing
00:12:47
the consumer they're about changing our
00:12:49
behavior the Oh everything else is about
00:12:52
changing supply its some sort of
00:12:55
technical technological innovation
00:12:56
that's going to solve the problem with
00:12:58
with a change in supply whereas the
00:13:01
heavier lifts and some of them are
00:13:03
consequential ones who are dealing with
00:13:05
generating waste and changing our diet
00:13:08
let's start with eliminating waste
00:13:10
there's so many things we can do one
00:13:12
cool thing that Virginia Tech did pretty
00:13:14
easy is you eliminate trace you know if
00:13:16
you had a tray you're a buffet
00:13:17
it's that all-you-can-eat you fill that
00:13:19
thing up and you don't need a little bit
00:13:21
of it you throw the rest away but if you
00:13:22
don't have trays you have to go back for
00:13:24
more and you only get what you can eat
00:13:26
and by eliminating trays Virginia Tech
00:13:28
many dumpsters of food waste something
00:13:32
we sometimes don't think about and in
00:13:34
part because sustainability
00:13:36
professionals tend to be opposed to
00:13:37
plastic and preservatives but they save
00:13:41
a lot of food and keep it from rotting
00:13:43
another thing we can do is we can
00:13:44
educate consumers about what I use by
00:13:47
date means when what what actually does
00:13:49
it mean to win a fit when the use by
00:13:51
date is passed so often it's not that
00:13:53
the food is bad it's just that it no
00:13:55
longer tastes at its prime so there are
00:13:58
lots of things we can do to reduced
00:14:00
waste in the developed world it's going
00:14:02
to take a little bit of investment and
00:14:03
wrapping packaging preservatives as well
00:14:07
as education but in the in the
00:14:09
developing world it's going to take some
00:14:11
serious investment of infrastructure
00:14:12
refrigeration sorting sheds better ways
00:14:14
to keep the food from rotting in the
00:14:17
field another thing we can do is change
00:14:20
diets it's just about anything that
00:14:23
moves beef and lamb off the center of
00:14:26
the plate is a big deal people don't
00:14:29
like to change their diets so it's gonna
00:14:31
be a long hard push here but it's slowly
00:14:35
happening there's some very great
00:14:37
initiatives and it's meatless Monday and
00:14:40
other kinds of things work but even just
00:14:42
selecting the type of meat that you eat
00:14:44
so emphasizing maybe poultry over beef
00:14:47
and make a huge difference right you're
00:14:49
not eating not eating shrimp so what are
00:14:52
the what are the choices we have are
00:14:54
things like plant forward menus and in
00:14:57
ingredients there's some terrific work
00:14:59
being done by an organization called
00:15:01
menus have changed and another one
00:15:03
changing tastes you should google them
00:15:05
and what they're doing is recruiting
00:15:06
high-profile chefs to help create buzz
00:15:09
and menus and recipes an ingredient list
00:15:13
that basically move the meat off the
00:15:14
center and and on to the side more like
00:15:17
a condiment and and making dishes
00:15:19
emphasize protein and flavor and serving
00:15:23
sizes that are much more sustainable so
00:15:26
there's a lot we can do to affect diet
00:15:27
and and it's going to take some change
00:15:30
to make that happen and as a result I've
00:15:33
put some money in and even though it is
00:15:34
behavior change one of the things I
00:15:37
suggest we not do is cultivate more Lyon
00:15:40
we could cut down the few force that are
00:15:43
remaining and and plow it over and
00:15:45
release all the carbon out of the soil
00:15:46
and the forest and in the atmosphere and
00:15:49
kill the biodiversity and clump out the
00:15:52
water but is just unacceptable
00:15:54
consequences to me
00:15:55
so cultivate
00:15:56
is off the table certainly one of the
00:15:58
things I did put a lot of money into in
00:16:00
fact the most money is intensification
00:16:02
that is to figure out how to make the
00:16:05
best practices that are on some parts of
00:16:07
the land now spread over over the globe
00:16:11
because if we have the best practices
00:16:14
that is the the land producing the most
00:16:17
beef or corn or cotton or rice whatever
00:16:21
it is we're producing per hectare
00:16:23
we can actually meet our food needs now
00:16:25
that is if we can spread the best
00:16:27
management practices and that probably
00:16:29
means really smart agriculture means
00:16:31
monitoring and and digit digital
00:16:34
techniques that managed irrigation
00:16:38
managed fertilizer manage weeding and
00:16:41
plowing and all kinds of other things so
00:16:43
there's a lot of technology we can use
00:16:44
to increase increase the agricultural
00:16:46
productivity it also means a lot of
00:16:48
genetically modified organisms
00:16:50
everything from changing soybeans so
00:16:52
that they can be planted without tilling
00:16:54
which saves a lot of soil loss in carbon
00:16:57
loss to increasing the capacity of the
00:17:00
of the plant to absorb carbon dioxide to
00:17:03
input some of the so about c-4 processes
00:17:07
into c3 plants the other thing we need
00:17:10
to do is regenerative restorative
00:17:12
agriculture that improves the the
00:17:14
fertilization improves the the salinity
00:17:18
improves the degraded soil it's a lot of
00:17:20
land out there that now is abandoned
00:17:22
because it's been poorly used or
00:17:23
polluted and we need to figure out how
00:17:25
to bring that back into production and
00:17:27
so there's money to be spent here up and
00:17:29
there's huge gains in terms of food
00:17:32
productivity as well as save
00:17:34
biodiversity and other ecosystem
00:17:35
services as you can see I also put a
00:17:38
fair bit of money into climate
00:17:40
vulnerability I'm increasingly worried
00:17:41
about this as you know how to
00:17:43
temperatures will decrease plant
00:17:44
productivity the increasing water
00:17:47
scarcity from climate change is going to
00:17:48
disrupt crops the soil carbon loss and
00:17:51
microbe loss it's going to decrease the
00:17:54
fertility it's going to be new pests
00:17:56
migrating in that are gonna destroy
00:17:58
crops more variable Frost's and droughts
00:18:01
perhaps the need to relocate farms
00:18:03
further north at least in the northern
00:18:05
hemisphere
00:18:06
both the climate vulnerability and
00:18:10
intensification are a very high-tech
00:18:13
option so I'm I'm pushing a lot of
00:18:16
Technology here I think we're gonna need
00:18:18
that in order to feed the world and
00:18:19
adapt to climate change
00:18:21
see I did put a little money into
00:18:24
biomaterials and bioenergy well actually
00:18:26
not bioenergy I don't think it's a good
00:18:29
idea to put corn in in ethanol or
00:18:33
switchgrass or
00:18:35
forests into biofuels it's just the cost
00:18:38
is too high in terms of water and
00:18:39
biodiversity but biomaterials over the
00:18:42
last couple years I've begun to think
00:18:45
that that we need we need to put more
00:18:46
money into that to replace plastics to
00:18:50
replace or at least petroleum-based
00:18:52
plastics to replace steel to replace
00:18:56
maybe cement or basically there these
00:18:59
are very high carbon intensive products
00:19:02
plastics steel cement and bio-based
00:19:05
materials it would be a good good
00:19:07
substitute for that and so we need to me
00:19:09
to put money and research to figure out
00:19:11
how to do this so that's also a big part
00:19:13
of the circular economy as tough is to
00:19:15
replace the non-renewable inputs into
00:19:18
ending the economy now with the
00:19:19
renewable bio materials well let's take
00:19:26
the non-controversial one a new food I
00:19:29
am I'm all in favor of new food I think
00:19:31
there'll be new foods and impossible
00:19:33
burgers and beyond be four great
00:19:35
examples I think there's money to be
00:19:37
made there and say I think Silicon
00:19:39
Valley is all over it so I think the
00:19:41
investors will do it or there's not a
00:19:42
really justification to put in public
00:19:44
dollars and into new foods okay let me
00:19:48
get into the controversial ones please
00:19:50
don't hate me for it but I'm coming out
00:19:52
against organic and local foods there's
00:19:56
a lot of Mythology and misunderstanding
00:19:58
and zealotry people believe it's just
00:20:01
good because it's good bear with me
00:20:05
I'm going to explain myself and give you
00:20:08
a little confession there's some good
00:20:11
literature it's in the in the references
00:20:14
and so dig into that the problem biggest
00:20:18
problem with organic and local is that
00:20:20
it's not as efficient as intensified
00:20:22
agriculture and as a result we have to
00:20:25
cultivate more land that means we have
00:20:26
to cut down more biodiversity it means I
00:20:29
mean cut down more force that means
00:20:30
destroy more biodiversity and release
00:20:32
more carbon and and use more water and
00:20:37
that cost is just unacceptable to me
00:20:40
there a lot of discussion about organic
00:20:44
being healthier there's not really a lot
00:20:46
of support in the literature for that it
00:20:49
may taste better I'm not going to refute
00:20:51
that I don't think that's a relevant
00:20:53
issue I mean aesthetics are fine but
00:20:55
that's not a reason for a policy
00:20:57
decision here the relationship between
00:21:00
organic food and human health is very
00:21:04
tenuous
00:21:04
and probably doesn't exist so let's get
00:21:09
into localism ok a lot of people are
00:21:13
localist they believe local is good
00:21:15
because it's local but that's a
00:21:18
tautology it's like saying nature is
00:21:20
good because it's natural we need to go
00:21:23
beyond that tautology and actually look
00:21:26
at the specific impact so let's look at
00:21:29
environmental economic and equity
00:21:31
impacts of local food ok here is my
00:21:35
confession I spent about 15 years of my
00:21:38
research career researching localism I
00:21:41
was a believer field to fork wood to
00:21:43
Goods all these local natural resource
00:21:45
based economies unfortunately the
00:21:48
research didn't bear out the positive
00:21:50
impacts it turns out it's not so much
00:21:53
that whether it's local or not that
00:21:55
matters but it matters what matters is
00:21:56
how it's done and who does it if there's
00:21:59
lots of example local examples that were
00:22:01
lots of pesticide application way too
00:22:04
much irrigation and soil the road
00:22:07
with biodiversity loss with where the
00:22:10
farmer is not protecting the environment
00:22:12
right and the the food miles think the
00:22:15
idea of local somehow having a smaller
00:22:17
carbon footprint yet that's that's a
00:22:19
faulty logic it turns out that the the
00:22:22
carbon footprint associated with
00:22:23
transportation is actually very small
00:22:25
but most of the carbon footprint is
00:22:27
associated with growing the crop so what
00:22:29
really matters is being located where
00:22:31
the Sun is best the water's best the
00:22:34
pests are best the the nutritional value
00:22:36
of the soil is best whatever it takes to
00:22:38
grow that crop most efficiently that
00:22:41
will reduce the carbon footprint the
00:22:43
carbon footprint associated with
00:22:45
transportation could actually be worse
00:22:47
for localism because the truck going
00:22:50
back and forth from the farm to the
00:22:52
farmers market is pretty inefficient
00:22:53
people have to drive to the farmers
00:22:55
market and they only buy a few things
00:22:57
there then they have to go shopping
00:22:59
elsewhere so there actually might be
00:23:00
more carbon emissions than a very
00:23:02
efficient transport system so from an
00:23:05
environmental perspective it's not food
00:23:07
miles there may be more pesticide
00:23:09
application there may be more land use
00:23:11
maybe erosion there may be water use
00:23:12
it's possible that local is bad on many
00:23:15
fronts for regarding the environment the
00:23:19
second e economics it's got to be better
00:23:23
for localism well again probably not
00:23:27
there there will be more dollars
00:23:29
circulated in the local economy but to
00:23:32
remember the the figure we looked at
00:23:34
earlier only a small percentage of the
00:23:36
money we spend on food actually goes to
00:23:38
the farmer and in a local economy
00:23:41
there'd be a little bit higher
00:23:42
percentage because the food would
00:23:43
actually be a little bit more expensive
00:23:44
but in essence we're taking money away
00:23:46
from other people that that money is
00:23:48
going to be spent somewhere most of it's
00:23:50
going to be spent and on packaging or
00:23:53
production or marketing services and and
00:23:57
those people if you have a local
00:24:00
agriculture those people actually be
00:24:02
worse off won't they so you're actually
00:24:03
taking money from them right so there's
00:24:05
it's it's not at all clear that from an
00:24:08
economic perspective it's it's positive
00:24:10
let's look at it from the perspective of
00:24:13
comparative advantage in a local region
00:24:16
all the neighbors have like lots of
00:24:18
zucchini at the same time or lots of
00:24:20
strawberries or lots of apples or
00:24:21
whatever it is whatever a local area
00:24:23
produces they all come in at the same
00:24:25
time and as a result of having such an
00:24:27
abundance of supply there is a very
00:24:29
diminished price I mean you can't give
00:24:30
zucchinis away sometime right and so
00:24:33
that if if you could take that zucchini
00:24:35
and and transport it a thousand miles to
00:24:38
a place that can't grow zucchinis then
00:24:40
you can make some money right and both
00:24:42
communities are better off the community
00:24:43
that doesn't have the zucchini now has
00:24:45
it and you got community that grew it
00:24:47
now has money that they can use for
00:24:49
something else okay Bruce what about the
00:24:51
third e equity or community the third
00:24:55
dimension of sustainable development the
00:24:57
advantages there well again it's hit or
00:25:00
miss certainly there are advantages of
00:25:02
knowing your farmer knowing where your
00:25:04
food comes from but not always right you
00:25:08
have to admit that there's a fair bit of
00:25:09
oppression racism sexism poor wages poor
00:25:13
labor practices little Economic
00:25:15
Opportunity in rural small local
00:25:20
businesses whereas larger multinational
00:25:25
companies are brand conscious they've
00:25:28
got human resource programs that respect
00:25:31
equity and diversity and labor practices
00:25:33
they've got professional development
00:25:35
opportunities travel opportunities
00:25:37
education programs all kinds of things
00:25:39
that would make the work environment
00:25:40
more productive more effective and big
00:25:44
companies have large endowments and
00:25:47
foundations that give money back to the
00:25:49
community so there's other you know that
00:25:51
can be better but it can be worse so
00:25:53
again it's with same with environment
00:25:55
same with with with the economy and the
00:25:58
same with equity it's not so much
00:26:00
whether it's local or not that matters
00:26:02
what matters are the practices what
00:26:04
matters is how well the people are doing
00:26:07
it and that can be done globally or
00:26:09
locally so locally by itself is not
00:26:11
necessarily better
00:26:13
it may taste better but that's an
00:26:15
aesthetic and I'm not willing to to make
00:26:18
a decision based upon that right and and
00:26:21
because it's unfortunately less
00:26:23
productive in terms of producing the
00:26:25
food that we need and we have to maybe
00:26:28
double the amount of food I think local
00:26:30
is not a solution to the challenges we
00:26:32
face that's why I didn't put any dollars
00:26:35
in it sorry
00:26:36
darn I'll let brother West's music fade
00:26:40
out here I have to turn it back on for
00:26:42
you
00:26:43
I hope we're still friends after this
00:26:45
it's a difficult subject certainly and I
00:26:50
just I want to impress upon you how
00:26:52
important agriculture is I mean there
00:26:54
are a few things that have bigger
00:26:56
impacts on the environment than
00:26:58
agriculture and we've got to somehow
00:27:01
double the amount of food may be
00:27:03
produced in order to feed a more
00:27:05
populous and prosperous world population
00:27:09
it's it's an amazing challenge and I'm
00:27:12
glad that you're up to the task so enjoy
00:27:18
the rest of the program
00:27:21
[Music]
